The Monster and I caught the last half hour of a U14 Girls match. I saw some things with the coaches which I thought were well, not normal. The first oddity was with the away team - a man behind some beach chairs was shouting out instructions to the team. The oddity was that eventually I figured out he wasn't the coach. He wasn't sending in players to sub and he wasn't the one who was surrounded by players at the end. No, instead a quiet man on the bench filled that role. I never heard him speak, let alone yell. I guess he is okay with the father yelling out instructions. I wouldn't be.

So that was what I thought was not normal. The normal thing was with the home team. A player received the ball, touched it twice, and it ended up bouncing out of bounds off of the defender. As the player came out to do the throw-in, the coach yelled out "One touch!". The girl was almost in tears as she chased the ball into the crowd - "I never can do anything right for him." I think she said something else to an adult who had the ball.

As she threw the ball in, the coach came over to talk to the adult - "Did you instruct her? You know that isn't allowed. I told her one touch and she has to listen." I didn't hear a reply from the adult.

Now, while this coach was more verbal than the other, he didn't take it out on the girl then and there. Okay, they were playing down a player (either injury or an earlier red card, no idea), but he didn't berate her. I thought he was right to talk to the adult, he needs to establish authority.

And knowing nothing at all about the existing relationships, I didn't take it as a girl overreacting. I.e., like a boy would just shrug it off. To me, it came across as two very competitive individuals bashing heads.

The girls were also very physical. The two teams were from different clubs, but you could tell they've played each other in the past. One girl, waiting to sub, was very proud she had pushed someone on the other team earlier. She made her hand flat and said, "I pushed her like this."